


(Teach Me) How to Hold Air Under Water

by hilt (orphan_account)



Category: Danny Phantom, Free!
Genre: Danno and the gang are sophomores, Multi, Rin gets crushes on some DP characters but he loves his teams, Rin still went to Australia in middle school, but now he's studying abroad in America, he'll be taking classes with the Juniors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-03
Updated: 2016-11-03
Packaged: 2018-08-28 21:38:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8463883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/hilt
Summary: Rin Matsuoka is a Japanese exchange student in Casper High staying with the Fenton family. After spending some time with the eccentrics, he notices some unusual things about their son and becomes quite curious.Phantom Planet never happened.





	

Waiting. It was a tedious, apprehensive state of non-action that Daniel Fenton could neither stand nor afford.

Currently, he was waiting with his parents in a large Wisconsin airport for an exchange student from Japan who would be staying with them over the school year. Rin Matsuoka, a swimming enthusiast who would be trailing Casper High's Junior class.

A steady stream of travelers hobbled out from an open area leading to various terminals on the left. Dany stood to run his eyes across faces and hair, searching for someone both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

_Red hair, longer than usual but not by any means long..._

A nicely built figure in dark gray skinny jeans and a sporting jacket with the name of some team spelt out in a foreign language caught his attention. The guy had just picked up a crimson suitcase and was gazing about amongst the crowd as though searching for someone, himself. His eyes flickered over signs and across faces as well. Danny had heard that Rin had spent his middle school years in Australia, and therefore could speak and read English rather fluently. This man seemed to understand his surroundings rather well, and he looked a lot like Rin had on his Instagram.

Danny nudged his mom's shoulder and nodded towards the redhead.

 _I do hope that this is the right person,_ he thought inwardly, cringing at the potential embarrassment if it weren't.

Maddie stared at him for a moment as well, before looping an arm through Jack's and starting towards him. Danny followed closely, just a step behind.

"Rin Matsuoka!" Jack called out.

The redhead spun on his heel, staring at them in surprise and then recognition. If possible, he looked even more...  _alive_ in person than in his photos and selfies. His jacket had been left open in the front in expectation of the heat, revealing a dark green Coca-Cola tank above firm, lean abs. He grinned over at them, revealing his characteristic pointy teeth.

Maddie extended a hand as they drew closer, and the two shook.

"You are Rin Matsuoka, right?" she asked.

He nodded.

"Yes, and you are Madeline Fenton?"

She laughed.

"Just Maddie. Sorry about my doofus of a husband, Jack," she apologized sheepishly.

"Welcome to 'Murica, son," Jack greeted.

"Thank you, sir."

"Oh, you can call me Jack." A large hand grasped Danny's shoulder and pushed him forwards. "Say hello, Danny."

Danny shot his father a short glare of humiliation before mumbling, "Hi." His head tilted up slightly to meet Rin's eyes, and he took the hand that Rin extended towards him.

"Yo," Rin replied.

That had been the beginning of a new stage of life in the Fenton household. It was a late Saturday afternoon, and school was to begin the Monday after. The ride home was filled with conversations concerning Rin's life in Japan and Australia, as well as how to get by in America. It had been decided at an earlier date that he would be sleeping in the empty room across from Danny's and Jazz's, and that Jazz would be his chauffeur until another alternative was found. This worked just fine, as she already drove Danny to almost all basic locations that Rin might need to visit. She would have come to welcome Rin too, had she not been out of town in Florida with one of her girlfriends and their family.

"So, Rin," Jack asked curiously, "What kind of music do you listen to?"

Rin held up a finger just as the song playing on the radio ended, and he prepared to sing the next.

"Hello from the other side~," he sang.

"Adele?"

He chuckled, shaking his head.

"Not really. I'm more of a Kanye guy, myself. Although, he does tend to act like a... jerk."

"Nice save," Danny muttered.

Rin flashed him a grin. His teeth made it look kind of scary, although it appeared much more genuine and less competitive than his Instagram photos and selfies from the previous years. From what Danny understood, he'd been obsessed with beating an old friend of his in a swimming race, though they'd made up at the end of one season at the expense of not going to Nationals.

"I also listen to a band called Matenrou Opera and a few J-Pop bands, but I don't really go out of my way to know everything about them."

"I can't say that I've heard of them. Are they good?" Jack continued. He adjusted his rearview mirror, briefly glancing back.

"Of course," Rin replied. He turned to Danny. "What about you? What kind of stuff do you like?"

"I...," Danny stammered, feeling as though the walls of the van were closing around him. "I just play a lot of video games."

Rin nodded understandingly, though continued mercilessly through his questioning.

"Which genres do you play?"

"Um, just a lot of MMOs mostly. My friend Sam introduces me to a bunch of horror games as well, and Tucker likes logic games."

"Cool."

There was a pause before Rin suddenly leaned over into the middle of the row, staring at a sign that read 'Welcome to Amity Park.'

"Amity Park," he murmured, just loud enough for Danny to hear. Each letter of 'Amity' was drawn out slowly and enunciated with care, though his accent still layered them thickly. He sat up straight again and actually shifted into the center of the row, staring out the front window as they drew ever closer to the city.

"I've heard you've got your fair share of hauntings. It wasn't too long ago when the world doubted that ghosts exist," he stated. "So, you're professional ghost hunters, eh?"

"Jack's and my job is very important in this area," Maddie bragged. "Why, especially with that pesky Inviso-Bill flying about."

"Inviso-Bill?" Rin repeated questioningly, enchanted. He suddenly started. "Oh, it's a pun."

"Yeah, although regrettably, the ghost isn't near as cute as his name," Jack informed.

"It's Phantom," Danny muttered under his breath.

Rin cocked his head and raised his brows.

"It's... Phantom?" he asked, confused.

"Yeah. His name, it's Phantom."

"Oh."

Maddie cleared her throat. The atmosphere in the car had become drastically colder both metaphorically and literally. Both Danny's and Rin's shoulders tensed.

"Now, Danny," Maddie addressed in a sickly sweet voice. "You know the truth about Inviso-Bill, even if all of your peers think otherwise. We wouldn't want to give Rin dear the idea that he can be trusted."

She threw a stern look to Rin over the headrest of her seat.

"If you ever see him, run and call for help immediately. He'll be wearing a black hazmat suit, and he's got bright white hair. Jack and I will fix you up with some anti-specter defense once we get to the house."

Rin nodded, not really understanding. Danny had seemed almost offended when his parents had referred to the ghost as 'Inviso-Bill,' and it almost seemed as though the couple and their boy thought differently on the matter.

"So...," he ventured, "what makes an ectoplasmic entity different from one of us, anyway? Excluding the fact that they are dead and made of ectoplasm, of course."

"Everything, really," Maddie answered. "Their entire existence and stability relies upon an obsession which they seek, and their 'minds' are a lot simpler than ours. They can't feel true emotion except in extremes based around their obsession, and they don't have the ability to experience pain, at least not that they don't trick themselves into feeling from their memories of life. They're essentially hyper, disabled sociopaths made of ectoplasm with no reason to fear consequences hurting them any more than they've already been hurt."

"Oh," Rin responded, awestruck by her knowledge, though in personal disagreement with her last statement.

"Ghosts are highly dangerous, and Inviso-Bill is one of the most dangerous that we've ever come across. They, including him, want nothing more than to wreak havoc across the living plane."

"Plane?"

She froze for a moment, before realizing what he was asking and laughing lightly, relaxing once more.

"Our world in relation to theirs."

"Oh. So, like, as in planet or a parallel universe?"

"Parallel universe, certainly."

He nodded, though only Danny could see it.

"You sure do seem interested in ghosts, kiddo," Jack voiced his notice.

"Well, yeah," Rin admitted. "My own father died in a boating accident while I was young, so I want to learn all that I can if there's any chance that I can find him again."

"I suppose that's only natural," Maddie consoled. "I wouldn't go searching, though. Ghosts are created through very extreme deaths, and they aren't all that nice to meet."

"Even so," Rin refused. "I want to beat him at his own game."

Danny stared across at him in wonder, knowing that this just meant to his parents that Rin was fresh, unknowing meat to teach.

"That's even worse," Maddie complained.

"Yeah. I guess so," Rin simply breathed.

 

Dinner that night was pot roast with green beans and sweet rolls. Rin hadn't had anything Western so good since serving as an exchange student in Australia, and moaned at how the butter melted into the rolls on his tongue. The meat was solid but not too difficult to chew, and he found that if he tore at it a certain way it broke like strands into his mouth. The gravy was thick and hot, almost scalding. Boiled carrots and potatoes finished off the dish in flavorful, nutritional splendor.

"So why don't you tell him a bit about Casper High, Dannio?" Jack commanded.

Danny nodded, turning to Rin and swallowing a carrot before setting his fork on his finished plate.

"Right, so, first things first. Be prepared for the tests of Dash Baxter," he warned.

Rin laughed.

"I think I can take just about any tests your teachers will throw at me."

"Oh, no," Danny shook his head. "Dash is a student. His 'tests' will be to see if you qualify for the A-Listers, or his group of 'popular' students. He's a bully in the Junior graduating class, though since I'm in advanced classes, I still have to deal with him."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Then there's Paulina, who any dude that isn't gay or ace will, without fail, fall in love with at some point after seeing. They would be the school's star-crossed lovers if Paulina weren't set on dating Phantom."

"Inviso-Bill," Maddie quickly corrected.

"Phantom," Danny argued.

"Eh, ace?" Rin asked, confused about the term.

"Asexual," Danny clarified. "Not interested in sex."

Jack coughed awkwardly.

"Oh, that makes sense. Thank you. So, what else do I need to be prepared for?"

Danny stared down at his empty plate in thought for a moment.

"Constant ghost attacks, lots of questioning by curious students, racist jokes," he looked up at the last one to see Rin rolling his eyes. "What?"

"Oh, it's fine. Racist jokes are just jokes, is all. If anyone really has a problem, then they would not be joking."

"That does make sense. I just didn't want to accidentally offend you."

Rin brushed him off with yet another infectious laugh.

"Nah bro, it will take a lot more than that. America and Australia are sensitive, I think."

"Do you?" Danny asked.

"Yeah. In Japan, we're... well, haha."

"I see."  


The two continued back and forth well into the night, eventually leaving the table in favor of watching television in the living room. After a while, noticing Rin's evident jet lag that had only just settled in with all of the excitement, Danny took the mercy of showing him to the restroom and then his room.

It was a pale, grayish green with a dark gray wooden floor. There was a single queen sized bed with a shiny, garnet red bed set, a macassar wardrobe, desk and drawers, and a large set of double windows. Danny flicked on a switch on the right of the doorway and the ceiling light turned on. The two stepped in, Danny moving out of the way so that Rin could better see.

"So, how do you like it?"

"It's... perfect."

"Really?"

"Of course. There's even an outlet right next to the bed over there," Rin proved, pointing to an outlet right by the top left leg of the bed.

Danny laughed, and Rin realized that it had been the first time since he'd met the boy.

"I never noticed that."

"Yeah. Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Danny left the room to presumedly go into his own, and allowed the door to fall shut gently behind him. Rin sat his suitcase down and sighed, walking over and lying down next to the bed. He closed his eyes for a few minutes and just breathed, before standing up again and unpacking his laptop and phone charger. He plugged in the chargers to both before flicking off the light and going to sleep.


End file.
